Septic shock is the most common cause of death in critically ill patients in Intensive Care Units.  The development of septic shock is an extremely complex process involving many different cellular pathways of interacting proteins. One of the main proteins involved in these pathways is called nuclear factor kappa beta (NFκB). This protein controls the activities of other genes that are important to the survival of patients with septic shock. NFκB activity is controlled by another protein called NFκB inducing kinase (NIK).

Susceptible individuals for inflammatory diseases could be targeted for either preventative measures or care if we could identify them by obtaining their genetic code. However, to date, there is no effective method of discovering which of the more than 5 million genetic variants are important in determining disease susceptibility. A common approach is to test every genetic variation, in every patient, for its correlation with some disease (called Whole Genome Association orWGA), but this is extremely expensive and slow.